Doorstop - Malvern, Victoria

Subjects: Small and medium business tax cuts, Labor’s $200 billion worth of new taxes, religious freedoms.

KELLY O’DWYER:

I’ve just come from the electorate of La Trobe where I’ve been talking with the local Member Jason Wood and many small, medium and family sized businesses about the Government’s tax cut that will provide relief to those businesses – to the more than 3 million small and medium businesses across Australia that employ around 7 million Australians. This is great news for those businesses and those businesses appreciate the fact that they will be provided with tax relief five years sooner as a result of our announcement. But, there are risks. It is known to small businesses right across Australia that Bill Shorten voted against tax cuts for small business. He promised to reimpose those taxes on small business. And today he now claims that he will reverse that position. Small business cannot trust Bill Shorten and they cannot trust the Labor Party. Bill Shorten says for the moment that he supports these changes, but history shows that he simply supports higher taxes on small and family sized businesses.

Bill Shorten doesn’t understand small business. He’s never worked in one, he doesn’t understand what it takes for small businesses to be able to grow and succeed. He doesn’t understand the sacrifices that small business people make to risk their capital, and in some cases their homes, to grow an opportunity for themselves and for the people they employ. We get that, which is why we are backing small business. It’s why we can be trusted to support small business all the way. If Bill Shorten and Labor were serious about their support for small business they would immediately cut their plan to impose $25 billion of tax on family businesses, they would cut their plan which would repeal the Australian Building and Construction Commission regulator which is protecting small business on construction sites right across this country. Bill Shorten can’t be trusted, Labor can’t be trusted and small business knows it.

JOURNALIST:

How is the Government going to pay for accelerating the tax cuts for small and medium businesses?

KELLY O’DWYER:

Well the Government, of course, always lives within its means. We have got a plan to pay for all of our announced changes and, of course, through the ordinary process, the ordinary MYEFO and budget process, it’s all accounted for. Unlike Labor’s spending proposals, which are going to be paid for by $200 billion of additional taxes imposed on retirees, on small business people, on people who have saved, on people who want to go about their life. Labor has got a plan of $200 billion worth of new taxes, and Labor does not have a plan other than out-of-control spending. And that hurts all Australians.

JOURNALIST:

So you’ve got a plan; what is that plan?

KELLY O’DWYER:

We pay for it, in the ordinary course of the Budget, in the ordinary course of MYEFO. That’s our plan. We are a Government that is living within its means. We are a Government that is bringing the Budget back to surplus and our plan is on track, which is why we’ve been given AAA credit ratings, and it is why we have been able to see under our economic settings the creation of employment for more than one million Australians, including 100,000 young Australians in 12 months alone.

JOURNALIST:

Are you going to tell us about that plan, or just say there is a plan?

KELLY O’DWYER:

No, I’ve told you and I’ll say again: it’s been paid for through the ordinary Budget process. Our Government is a Government that has created the right economic settings, that has seen employed more than one million Australians. These are new jobs, and new jobs for more than 100,000 young Australians. This is a record. This is a record that has been delivered in 12 months.

JOURNALIST:

Should the existing law allowing religious schools to discriminate against students based on sexuality, be repealed?

KELLY O’DWYER:

We as a Government do not want to see any discrimination against young people according to their sexuality, and we certainly don’t want to see that in our schools. Now Labor made some changes during their term of Government that wouldn’t necessarily adequately protect those young people, and we want to make sure they are protected.

JOURNALIST:

How?

KELLY O’DWYER:

Well, you will see some further announcements by the Government in the course of consideration of the report that was been received. But let me be very, very clear, we won’t allow young people, particularly young students to be discriminated against on the basis of their race, of their gender, or of their sexuality. That is something we simply will not accept. Where we need to strengthen Labor’s deficient laws, we absolutely will.

JOURNALIST:

So you do support repealing that so they can’t be discriminated against based on their sexuality?

KELLY O’DWYER:

We won’t allow any discrimination against young people based on their sexuality or gender or their race. And Labor should join with us in making sure young people have got the strongest protections in place, so they are protected. Thanks very much.